


The Official Russian Ex-Assassin Guardian Angel Support Group to Two Blonde Human Disasters

by darth_stitch



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Friendship, M/M, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-09 10:59:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1980378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darth_stitch/pseuds/darth_stitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick Fury calls in Natasha and tells her, "I need you to keep an eye on Steve Rogers."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Official Russian Ex-Assassin Guardian Angel Support Group to Two Blonde Human Disasters

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at [The Blanket Fort](http://darthstitch.tumblr.com/post/89812466776/natasha-romanoff-a-winter-soldier-headcanon)
> 
> **Disclaimer:** It ain't mine; it's all Disney and Marvel, folks.

After the Battle of New York _,_ Nick Fury calls Natasha in and tells her, “I need you to keep an eye on Steve Rogers.”

Because Fury’s not an idiot.  He’s seen for himself how lost and out of time Cap is.  All his friends are gone.  Peggy is old and her mind’s fading away.  The records show that Steve has no other living relatives, no other friends to anchor him in this here and now.

Fury has looked at the dates between the train job where Bucky Barnes died and when Steve crashes the plane.  He doesn’t like the picture he’s coming up with.

Steve’s Catholic.  But war does a lot of shit to a great many people, including their religious beliefs.  Just because Steve wouldn’t be eating a gun, doesn’t mean he’d be averse to repeating a heroic sacrifice _yet again_. 

So Nick lays it out on the table for Natasha and she gives him her best unimpressed look because, “I am _not_ sleeping with Steve Rogers.”

She’s played that kind of game a lot of times before.  It was a job, a mission, there were objectives to accomplish.  But she’s _done_ with this kind of bullshit.  And okay, Steve _is_ attractive and his kindness is absolutely fucking _unreal_ and it would be easy to pull off.  Play the game.  Maybe love him for real.  Keep him safe and grounded.  

Love is for children.  Natasha Alianova Romanoff is done with that.  She’s not playing.

Fury has the grace to look abashed and tells her that card is off the table.  It’s simple.  Cap needs a friend.  Cap needs _somebody._ He’s smart enough to figure out _why_ Nat is really there.  But at least she’d be a _friendly_ face, if not an actual buddy-buddy BFF. 

So Nat starts in by trying to set Steve up on dates.  In the process, she learns more about Steve.  She learns that he used to sing, so the Barbershop Quartet comment wasn’t a joke.  He’d sung with Jim, Monty and Gabe, once upon a time. 

Nat takes a wild guess and checks the files if Barnes played the piano.  He did. 

Steve doesn’t really sing anymore.  Though there was one heartstopping moment where he sang a Winnie the Pooh song for a little Captain America fan.  The kid lit up like Christmas. 

Steve likes to draw.  Nat has seen at least _one_ sketchbook.  She’s flipped it open once, only to find her face in there.  She flipped it closed again. 

Steve sees a _lot_ more than people take him for.

It is hilariously, ridiculously easy to _like_ Steve Rogers.  Steve figures out how to use most tech in minutes but he’ll pretend that he doesn’t know how to work a microwave, if only to mess with Tony Stark’s head.  He’s a bit of a little shit that way.  Clint would approve. 

When they do that fake kiss, it’s clumsy, but his hands settle nicely at her waist and they’re warm and he’s surprisingly easy to lead but it’s obvious that he’s uncomfortable.  She senses, rather, the sharp intake of breath as they resume the kiss for the benefit of the STRIKE agents searching for them and it’s _better_ but she has the distinct feeling he’s thinking of _someone_ else. Just to make it work.

Nat idly wonders if that was how he’d kissed Peggy Carter goodbye.  She can’t help but tease him for it, only to see his ears go red. 

That’s another thing about Steve Rogers.  He grew up in Brooklyn, didn’t exactly live a sheltered life, went into the Army, seen a lot of shit go down.  He’s able to fight down and dirty like nobody’s business, Irish temper and Brooklyn rage working hand in hand, wicked and vicious and fast.  Watching him go to war is a thing of beauty. 

And after all that, it is still hilariously, _ridiculously_ easy to make him blush pink.  It’s adorable.

When Nat figures out that Bucky Barnes is Steve’s key, her heart breaks for him.  Fucking hell.  She could try to convince herself otherwise, but her heart breaks for him all the same.

And she’s not surprised that when the numbness and the shock fade and Steve’s fine mind is up and running once more, his thoughts are to burn HYDRA to the ground.  Salt the earth.  All or nothing.

He’s done it before.  Just for Barnes.  It’s not new.

She gains Steve’s trust and his friendship and in return he gets hers.  They’re both hard-won things.  She doesn’t give this lightly to anyone and Clint would probably smirk and say that he’s got the bullet holes to prove it, because he’s a human disaster.  It’s part of his charm. 

Steve’s a human disaster in his own way too.  She could tell him that the Red Room is vicious and cruel and that they make up a life for you and put it in your head and take it away at their whim, men and women who think it’s fun to play god, fucking around with people’s lives, their very _souls_.  She could tell him that there may not be much of Barnes left in the Winter Soldier, that he’s chasing a dead man, a ghost and even if they find each other, Steve would either be burying a body or be burying his heart. 

Because she gets it now, remembers the train job, remembers the plane crash, remembers the dates.  Puts the bits of information together, sees the picture that Fury was afraid to speak aloud. 

Love like that isn’t for children.  Love like that isn’t supposed to be _real._

Steve Rogers wasn’t supposed to be _real_ but she found him bleeding and alive on the shores of the Potomac.

Alive with gunshot wounds that should’ve been on his head instead of his body, if he had been going up against one of the best snipers in the world. 

Alive when he could’ve been left in the river to drown. 

Alive when she could see the boot prints on the ground, the other marks that tell a different story. 

Steve Rogers wasn’t supposed to be real, but she’d kissed him once, to hide him.  Listened to him joke and banter.  Heard him sing.  Seen him draw a picture of her that made her think,  _That couldn’t be me.  That couldn’t possibly fucking be me._

So she hands him the Winter Soldier’s file.  Lets him get on his quest.  He already knows what she’s supposed to tell him, what Sam has already been saying.  

But she’ll pull him close and tell him to hope.  She’ll hope for him. 

She’ll hope there’s enough left in James Buchanan Barnes to make his way back home. 

She’ll hope that there’s enough left of Steven Grant Rogers to keep fighting this particular good fight.  To find his _home_ again. 

She’ll hope for both of them. 

_\- end -_

**A Postcript:** In the end, Bucky and Nat found the Official Russian ( _I’m actually Romanian but never mind_ \- Bucky) Ex-Assassin Guardian Angel Support Group to Two Blonde Human Disasters.  Just like Dark Lords of the Sith, there can only be two.  

**Author's Note:**

> This is an edited and cleaned up version of what was supposed to be a meta but ended up being a story of its own on my Tumblr. :)


End file.
